He's My Brother
by CV3
Summary: Set around 8x16. A series of weird, apparently unconnected events draw the Winchesters to Hope, Indiana. Some digging turns up very bad news - it all points to a ritual being worked to jailbreak Hell. But the bad guy may not be what they expect, and the hunt may be more personal than they could have imagined. After prologue, from Dean's POV.
1. Prologue

He cast a furtive look around for at least the tenth time. Around him, the dilapidated warehouse was still, silent, empty. He looked down again at the bound woman at his feet. She twisted uselessly, her hands tied behind her back, ankles bound. Gagged, she whimpered as frightened brown eyes gazed up at him. He could practically hear her pleas in his head. _Please, don't hurt me. Just let me go … please._

He swallowed, swiped sweat off his brow and knelt next to her, taking up the needle. The woman squeaked in terror, wriggling away from him.

"This won't kill you," he told her, hearing the words and hardly believing they came from him. This was what his life had become - he was validating his actions now based on whether or not others would survive them.

But it had to be done. It had to.

"I just … I just need the blood is all. It'd be mine if it could be, I swear. I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt you. But … it's important. If you knew what I know you'd understand. I'm sorry."

Before he could think any more, he grasped her by the soft flesh of her upper arm, and plunged the 7-gauge needle into her inner elbow. He didn't want to hurt her any more than necessary, and his purposes didn't specify the necessity of cutting her to drain the blood. This was kinder, he told himself, but couldn't believe it for a second anymore. He watched as the supple plastic tubing filled solid red, the collection bag at the end, originally intended for catheters but the only option for the volume he needed, start to swell.

The woman curled before him was crying, and he felt an inch from it himself.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to his victim's now deaf ears. "I'm so sorry."

He knew this was risky. The amount of blood he needed meant almost draining her dry. The _almost _was the only reason he could still do this. He had wondered, through a week of sleepless nights leading up to this moment, if he would still be kneeling here draining an innocent woman of her blood if his purposes had demanded _completely. _The thought made him sick.

He swallowed fear and self-hatred and confusion and pain, casting his eyes around the empty warehouse, as the woman's muffled sobs gradually slowed the closer she bled out toward unconsciousness. The warehouse hadn't been by accident. It was the only place he had found where he could be relatively safe to do the deed and it was close enough to the county hospital that when he called the ambulance, she would live long enough for them to find her. To save her. From him.

But he couldn't falter now. There were still more steps to be completed until he was ready. The thought both sickened him, and bizarrely gave him strength to go on, to keep doing these things. Because they had to be done, they had to. The end result was where his gaze was fixed.

She was silent at his feet, and he checked the pulse in her neck. It still beat sluggishly. But he was as prepared as anyone could be for something like this. He knew the volume that he could extract without killing her, balanced against the amount of blood he needed. It was a knife's edge. He dragged his bag toward him and found the plump bag of AB negative blood. It had been part of the reason it had to be her - he had to match the blood as closely as he could, and AB negative was rare. He glanced down at the blood bag and wished. He had tried - he had wasted weeks trying to find enough of the blood type in donations to serve his purposes, but it hadn't worked. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy, that innocent. This was a sacrifice, there was no denying it. The kind of act he was performing demanded nothing less. He hung the bag from the improvised pole and coat hanger, pulled the 7 gauge from her arm, tied off the puncture firmly but not enough to cut off whatever circulation she had left, and inserted the needle carefully into the other arm. He watched in reverse as the tubing ran red, replenishing rather than depleting her blood volume. He told himself she would live. He needed her to. But he needed her blood for one precious purpose, and he had done everything he could to compensate. He hadn't hurt her any more than he'd needed to to immobilize her and drain her blood. He had chosen this place so she would be found and cared for quickly. He had taken considerable trouble to find enough AB negative blood to replenish her as quickly as he could, improving her chances of survival. He was going to call the ambulance as soon as he was far enough away not to be caught. He wasn't a monster … he wasn't.

Carefully, gently, he taped the feeding IV to her skin, checked her pulse still beat, gathered the harvested blood bag safely into his backpack, and stood up.

It was now he had to leave her. Leave an innocent woman potentially to die, because of him. He looked down at her, and it almost consumed him. But he had done his best. He had done all he could for her. He had to turn away.

Pulling in a deep breath, he shouldered the backpack, and left the warehouse as quickly as he could without running and attracting attention.

Four blocks from the warehouse, he pulled his cellphone and dialled 911.

The operator picked up, and he tried not to sound shell-shocked and breathless.

"There's a woman, in the old warehouse, 353 on Jefferson, two blocks from the county hospital. She's lost a lot of blood and she's AB negative, please hurry. You have to save her - please."

He clicked the line dead, removed the sim card, and crushed it beneath his heel.

It was done - and so was he. He leaned his back into the shadowed safety of an abandoned storefront and closed his eyes. He saw what he always saw - his brother smiled at him, arms crossed over his strong chest, dark eyes dancing. His foot was propped up on a log, and behind him stretched the greenness of their childhood home on the farm. It was the exact replica of his favourite photo. It was his brother, balls to bones. He was the reason for all this ugliness. Had been for fourteen weeks, five days, four hours and 26 minutes. And it just hurt more the longer the clock ticked, the longer he knew the reality, the brutal, visceral truth.

He opened his eyes, dragged in a breath, and stumbled on. He couldn't be suspected, or caught. He had to do this. The woman's blood was heavy in his pack in more ways than one, the cooling heat of it still searing him. But she would live, she had to. It couldn't make him a murderer and live with himself long enough to get done all he needed. Beyond that eventuality, he didn't care for his own fate.

He had work to do. The next step awaited, and for his brother's sake and his own, he had to complete it, no matter the cost. No matter the cost …


	2. Chapter 1 - Catching the Scent

_Hope, Indiana - 1:46pm :_

Dean flicked his eyes from the laptop's screen to the window.

Sam still wasn't back. He'd made a quick exit, claiming "personal stuff, don't worry about it." Yeah, like that was happening. Ever since Sam had taken on these trials, Dean was more suspicious than ever of Sam's "personal stuff." It almost literally translated into "hiding stuff from Dean." He was behind his brother, he was, but that didn't mean he spontaneously forgot the past. Sam wasn't exactly candid with activities he knew would worry, disgust, anger or otherwise hurt Dean. He thought of Ruby, in her last form, the dark-haired coma patient she had infested in order to appease his brother. There was so much between them…

Dean pushed the laptop away angrily and headed to the kitchenette for at least his sixth cup of coffee. At least, he thought, it was coffee more often than not these days.

He poured himself a healthy dose neglecting sugar or milk and sat back down.

This case had peaked Sam's interest rather than his, initially. Probably due to the kid burying himself up to his eyeballs in the Men of Letters library. Dean didn't begrudge him that - he sure as hell wasn't sifting through all that shit.

The signs were there, Sam had insisted in self-same library four days earlier. The weird, apparently unconnected series of events pointed directly to some serious mojo being cooked up. Hell-worthy mojo. And with this whole thing coupled with the tablets to close the gates of Hell on the table, Dean wasn't turning away if the facts were enough to send his brother into tailspin.

So here they were in Hope. Ah, the irony just multiplied the more he thought about it.

He angled his eyes back at the laptop. Local newspapers were always slightly garish, and this one was no exception. The article claimed _Local woman survives bizarre attack. _It was weird, he had to concede that. From the girl's account, someone had tied her up and drained most of her blood, only to hook up an IV to replace it and call the paramedics. Not exactly your run of the mill, give-me-your-wallet kind of mugging. They'd done some preliminary digging - the 911 caller was reported to be a man, who knew the victim's location and blood type, sounding scared. That was all they had down that road.

But there were things that had grabbed Sam's attention other than stressed blood-fetishists, all apparently around the vicinity of Hope. There had been a desecration of one of the graves in the local cemetery, three unexplained fires, the robbery of a local collector in which several extremely rare and apparently extremely expensive fifteenth century heretical religious tests had been lifted, unexplained fluctuations in local power supply, and more recently, several instances of what was described as a flashing effect at night.

"These are signs," Sam had claimed.

"Of what, supernatural schizophrenia?" Dean had asked disinterestedly, his boots crossed on the table.

"No," Sam replied, closing his eyes briefly in an expression that told Dean clearly that he was barely tolerating him right now. "Of someone trying to burrow into Hell."

Dean had shrugged.

"Who cares? They want to go to Hell, let them."

"Not to get into Hell. To get something _out._"

Yeah, that was more interesting. Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother over the top of his magazine.

"What do you mean," he asked cautiously, tone low.

"Okay," Sam wriggled forward unconsciously, and Dean almost smiled. He really did look like an overgrown kid when he warmed to his topic, the geek.

"All these things, they're signs of someone working some heavyweight mojo, and according to some texts in the Letters library, angled at dragging something out of Hell."

"What, like demon-something? Hold on, how the hell does some random fires, crappy electricity, robbery, grave desecration and one compassionate blood-fetishist all translate into pulling something out of Hell?"

Sam dropped him a look which practically screamed _come on. _

"Dean, this is only the stuff that got noticed. It seems unconnected because we're not seeing all the pieces of the puzzle here. This stuff is part of a ritual."

That made sense. Dean wished it didn't.

"Okay," he said slowly, not completely discounting the idea. "So you've got human remains, a blood sacrifice, something influencing the power, got to be something workable in those texts that were lifted … what next?"

"Can't know that for sure until we find out more," Sam replied, turning back to the scatter of books littering the table.

"That's kinda what I meant, asshat. Where do we start?"

Sam chewed the inside of his lip. "I dunno, maybe talk to that collector, find out what was in those texts."

"I'm thinking talk to Dracula's bride, too."

Sam nodded, "thinking maybe she had at least a description of this guy?"

"We ever that lucky?"

But they had rolled into Hope nonetheless. The victim didn't have a real solid bead on her attacker - just that he looked average. Average height, middle weight, dark hair. He had hit her over the head, and the next thing she knew she was bound and gagged, and he had stuck a needle in her. After that, she had passed out and came-to again with a paramedic leaning over her. They had asked if there was anything else that stood out about the attack, and she had frowned, remembering. There was something - he kept apologizing, insisting he didn't want to do this, or hurt her, but if she knew what he knew she'd understand. With that not making much sense, they went to grill one extremely irate collector. The value of the texts was priceless, incalculable, he ranted. They were the only known copies in existence, every other had been burned en masse by the church on heretical grounds in 1443.

They asked the usual sort of questions, fishing for anything useful - had they recently been on display, somewhere where someone might catch sight of them? Had anyone strange been around showing an interest? Who even knew he owned the texts? But everything was hitting a dead end. The collector hadn't noticed anyone suspicious, they had not been displayed, and as for who knew he owned them, he informed them that rare books of that calibre are all listed in publicly viewable catalogues. Anyone could have looked up his. Investigation of the fires turned up similar zilch. Apparently they even had no clue if they were accidental, or deliberately lit. It was like … well, like something supernatural was going on, Dean thought with a snort of laughter as he leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and rubbing at his hair. He had whittled it down to checking out the dates, times and places involved. If this was ritual, then those kinds of things could figure. A certain step had to be completed at a certain time, or a number of times, at a particular place or on a certain date. He was still coming up dry. Nothing about this case seemed to be adding up at all.

Before his mind could wander much further, Sam slid into the room.

"Hey, you okay?" Dean asked reflexively.

"I'm fine," Sam replied equally.

Dean narrowed his eyes. Sure. Sam was pale and his eyes were skittering.

"Sure about that?" Dean asked, tone flat.

Sam's eyes caught on Dean's face, and he scowled.

"Leave it alone, Dean."

Dean decided to drop it, for now at least. He pulled in a breath.

"Happen to find anything useful?"

"Yeah, actually," Sam said, clearly grateful to be changing the subject, which only made Dean more suspicious.

"About those texts. I know they're the only surviving copies, but what he said about rare book catalogues being publicly viewable made me think about source books."

"The what now?"

"Source books. Reference books that give like a cliffnote on the old manuscripts. If these books are as big a deal as the collector seems to think, then yeah maybe they're covered. It won't be the full text, and they're no genuine article, but at least we can get some idea of what the books covered. "

"Knew a Stanford education was good for something," Dean smiled. "So, what - do your thing and hit up the libraries?"

"Yeah. I'm hoping if the books belonged to a local collector, the source books covering them will be in the local library collection."

Dean hated being in libraries. This was always Sam's thing, not his. Something about the enforced quietness and stillness crossed with the narrow aisles between high shelves made him feel confined. It meant spending hours sifting through masses of information, usually to come up with only a few answers. That and he had always hated John sending him on fact-finding detail while he took on the hunt alone. Being in a library translated to Dean feeling generally frustrated and useless. He dropped the book on ceremonial magic he had been staring at onto the table and looked up at his brother. Sam was hunched over the fourth classic reference book, looking up the scattered bits and pieces from the original texts.

"Oh."

"Oh?" Dean pounced on any excuse to move this along.

"Oh man, this could be bad."

"No shit. When has dragging something out of Hell ever been a good thing?" He tipped Sam a grin. "Present company excluded."

But his brother wasn't taking the bait, and his eyes were still glued to the book.

"No I mean, really bad. As in raising Hell, opening the Devil's Gate bad. This, from what I can tell so far anyway, deals with _human _souls. Someone is trying to spring a human soul from the pit."

That was … actually kind of anti-climactic. Dean frowned at Sam.

"So, why the big bad? We've both been sprung from Hell, need I remind you."

"Dean … I know we forget because Cas is a friend, but you have to remember _what _he is. He's an _angel. _It took Cas and several other angels to pull that off, and even then, I still ended up soulless, need I remind _you. _Even with a thing like Death involved, it still would have killed me if not for Cas taking on the crazy. The kind of power that took kept everything else contained, but this guy is just a human. If he stuffs this up, and it's really likely he will, the finger comes out of the dam."

"That sounds vaguely dirty, but point taken," Dean replied. "So … any clues in that to tell us what his next move's gonna be?"

"It's not that simple," Sam answered. _Of course not, when is it ever that simple, _Dean thought, but said nothing as Sam rambled on. "This isn't exactly a manual. He's been … improvising, using other sources. That's going to make this harder to track down. Summoning a demon from Hell is one thing, but Ruby told me she knew of nothing powerful enough to raise a human soul, no demon, nothing. Before we met Cas. If a human is doing this, to pull another human soul from the pit - it goes against every cosmic rule in the book."

"Okay, so if it takes some serious juice to even swing this, how is one regular guy supposed to do it on his own with a bag of borrowed blood and an old book? Case closed, it's going to flop."

"Maybe," Sam conceded. "But maybe not. And that's the part we should be worrying about. We don't know the full story here, what we're actually dealing with."

"Alright," Dean signed, rubbing a hand down his face. "Start at step one."


	3. Chapter 2 - Following the Trail

It took a lot to prison-break a soul from the pit. That, Sam had said, was because it was simply not supposed to happen. As if that explained everything. He glanced at his brother where he slept on the bed closest to him. He seemed okay - but checking out on him without explanation earlier set Dean's hair on end. If something was going on, if he was suffering through some effect of taking the trials and keeping it from Dean … well, he'd slug him for a start. Here he was, yet again, back in this position - Sam was in danger, and there was nothing he could do about it. It had been a hell of a long and rough road, but his first order still applied nonetheless, and he'd meant every word he said. He needed Sammy to be safe. He needed to look after Sam, to protect him. But it seemed no matter what he did something was always gunning for the guy, and Dean was left consistently failing to save him. He was irrelevant - his job was to protect Sam. And here he was letting him step right into the line of fire. He contemplated, certainly not for the first or last time, going out to find one of those sons of bitches and slicing himself up some dog meat. It should have been him in the hotseat. Then, if anything went south, Sam would fare no worse than grieving him. Maybe he'd even get that normal life he had always wanted so bad, if Dean were dead, but with no need for rescue. And now, with this case probably involving some guy trying to spring a soul from Hell - it felt like too much coincidence and it was making him edgy.

He dropped the tomb he had been reading, pulled in a breath and looked at Sam's scrawled notes. The guy really did have abysmal handwriting. They hadn't got far, but with little more to go on, that was unsurprising. Sam had pieced together a few ideas, as Dean squinted at his notes.

_Raising human soul from Hell. Blood - blood sacrifice. Grave desecration - taboo/forbidden act, using human remains in ritual. Electrical interference, possibly lights at night - ritual power raising. Fire - elemental connection to Hell, ashes used in black arts -_

Before Dean could read any further, Sam suddenly jack-knifed awake in the dimness and blurted "The grave!"

"What?"

"The grave desecration, whose grave was it?"

"Uhh …"

Sam wrestled himself out of the blanket and clicked the laptop out of hibernation.

"There - Charles Mason Brandt. Of course."

"That makes sense how?"

"Magic has connections. And there was one big connection that we didn't have - who this soul was. And why that particular grave? Nothing is random Dean. You always quoted Bobby and said you didn't believe in coincidence."

Dean tried to ignore the shiver as Sam's words echoed his thoughts.

"So you think the soul he wants to rescue is this guy Brandt? And he's using some of his remains as a connection … shit, that makes sense."

So much sense he had to wonder why it hadn't been obvious before. It was hunting 101. Burn the remains to destroy the spirit. Or, in this case, use the remains to resurrect the soul. He thought of Benny, and resisted actually smacking himself in the head. He had done similarly with the vampire's soul, reconnecting it with his remains.

"How did he die?" Dean asked slowly, hit by another possibility.

Sam pulled up Brandt's obituary.

"Oh, man."

"What? No one likes suspense, Hitchcock."

"Sorry - it's just that Charles Mason Brandt died of an animal attack. Inside his locked house. In the middle of the night."

"Time of death being around midnight, I'm guessing. A goddamn demon deal."

Again, the connections were crossing, intersecting … if they found whoever this was, and there was already a hellhound involved, it was possible it would come back to reclaim its kill. He could still get Sam off the hook …

"Sam, look for a next of kin."

Sam looked up at him and smiled down to the dimples, before he bent over the computer, and spun it to face Dean. Only living relative - Jeremiah Thomas Brandt. Their ritual worker.

Jeremiah Brandt lived in a crumbling, low-rate apartment building on the outskirts of town. Both Winchesters eyed it warily as an old woman, filthy and wearing several layers of tattered clothing, shuffled past them dragging a vinyl trolley.

Dean cast Sam a look, to which his brother nodded. Despite everything that had happened between them, they had come back to that synchronicity, and Dean feared losing that all over again - losing Sam - through the trials. He dragged his thoughts away as his eyes adjusted to the dim hallway - the lighting wasn't working. They edged along the cramped corridor until they found their suspect's number. Dean pounded on the door.

There was no response, and no sound of movement from inside. Dean pounded harder.

"What're you doing?" demanded a voice from behind, spinning both brothers.

They hadn't put up a pretence, there was no point pretexting as feds when they intended to call out Jeremiah on his spellwork and force him to stop. Dean hadn't let his mind wander too far over _how _exactly they intended to do that when they caught up with him. Dean regarded the beady-eyed man leaning out the door of the adjacent apartment critically.

"Looking for the guy who lives here, Jeremiah Brandt. Seen him lately?"

"Well he's pissed off, hasn't he."

"When'd he leave?" Sam asked.

The man shrugged. "I dunno, maybe two weeks ago."

"D'you know where he went?" Sam fished.

"I don't care."

"Wow, thanks for your help man," Dean told him sarcastically, which earned him the door shut in his face. Sam shot him an irritated look.

"What? He wasn't going to tell us anything anyway."

"Well he certainly isn't going to now."

Dean shrugged. "He told us Jeremiah's taken off at least."

Dean cast a cursory look up and down the cramped hall before pulling out his lock pick. He tilted his head at the inquisitive neighbour's door.

"Keep an eye on Jerry's biggest fan, maybe his room will be more helpful."

Inside was more or less what he expected. There was hardly any furniture in the one room apartment, only a bed, a small rectangular table and a single chair, and a large sea chest squatting under the only window. Dean made a beeline for it as behind him, Sam locked the door from the inside and looked around.

The chest was padlocked - piece of cake. The hardware-store lock clicked open easily.

"Sammy." He held up a dried, twisted bunch of belladonna.

The drop in Sam's expression mirrored his own thoughts. They'd both had little doubt that Jeremiah was their man, but there had to be other people in Charles Brandt's life who wanted him out of Hell - girlfriend, wife, best friend, son - but the herb was a dead giveaway. Devil's herb, they used to call it. Jerry was trying to catch a great white by the tail. Everything else had been cleaned out. Apart from the nightshade, the only other objects in the chest were a broken crystal ball, and a few pages of a book Dean actually recognized as the same Sam had scoured hundreds of times looking for a way to break Dean out of his own deal. He felt the first stabs of sympathy for Jeremiah Brandt, and knew Sam had to be feeling it sharper. Jeremiah had gone through many of the same steps his brother had, trying anything and everything, desperate to save Dean. He shook the thought out of his head.

"This might be a lead," Sam's voice drew his eyes, to find his brother standing by the table. He flipped the crumpled flier over for Dean to see. It was for a garage conjure shop, supplies and services.

"Oh that is definitely worth a look."

The sandy-haired, thirty-something guy who ran the operation narrowed pale eyes at the Winchesters on his doorstep.

"Where'd you even get that, anyway?" He gestured to the flier Dean had held up.

"Jeremiah Brandt."

"Oh no way, get out of here with that, I'm not having anything to do with that crazy bastard, or you."

He moved to swing the door shut. Dean slapped a palm hard against it.

"We're not _helping _him, we're trying to stop him."

The supplier narrowed his eyes again, frowning calculatingly.

"Who the hell are you guys?"

"Doesn't matter who we are."

"Ah yeah it does, if you know what he's doing and think you can stop it. Anyone who comes around asking questions like that of someone like me can only be one of a handful of things. So which one you are determines whether or not I tell you shit."

Dean felt the involuntary twitch of a smile. Had to give him that. He cast Sam a look, who nodded. Roll the dice.

"Hunters," Dean answered shortly.

The guy in front of him cast them a sidewards look, suspicious and wary, but he didn't slam the door, run or throw some mojo at them, which was a plus.

"Okay," he said carefully, "Jeremiah may be a lot of things, but he's human. Not exactly your area. And if you're thinking damage control after the fact, forget it. That kind of mess … no one could clean that up."

"So he told you what he planned?" Sam interjected.

"Some of it. The parts where he thought he could use me. When I started catching on to what he was planning, I asked all the questions, but he wouldn't spill. I had to find out if he was just some random nutjob who watched too many movies or if he was legit enough to actually be a threat. And I'm sorry to say he's the latter."

"What did he want from you?" Sam asked.

"Ah, there were a few gaps in his spellwork. Some of it was just the staples, herbs, powdered sulphur and charcoal, ritual sigils, a standard summoning, nothing that rang any alarms, you know? But there were some questions he asked … look in my line of work, being stupid can get you killed. And I'm not stupid. It wasn't a leap to connect the kinds of practical application questions he was asking with the theft of the manuscripts a few weeks ago. He was actually trying to do it. A bastardized version of it, but essentially the same job, with the same end result. The text isn't like Raise Hell for Dummies, but it can be … twisted. Coupled with the kind of alterations Jeremiah already knew way too much about, I could see him actually patching together a ritual that might actually do it. Once I figured out where he was headed, I tried everything to convince him out of it. Told him what could happen, to him and everything else if he went through with it, but he wouldn't listen. Said he had to, that he had no choice. I don't know what that meant, but he refused to say. I could only hope that he snapped out of it, got cold feet, couldn't work the ritual, anything to stop him. Judging by the fact that it's not Apocalypse Now, I'm going with that."

"Hey, you could have worked a little magic of your own to slow him down," Dean said.

The guy gave him a crooked half-smile with too much knowledge behind it.

"That's professional entrapment, man. No dice, I'm not into that shit."

"Okay," Sam broke in, "did he tell you anything about the last steps in his ritual?"

"Uh, I don't know what he had already done, but … those fires that have been happening around town, I think - I think they were failed attempts. Kind of like fighting fire with fire. To poke a hole into Hell, it has to be done through fire."

"So what does that mean for his ritual? That it won't work, that he just needs to tweak it, what?" Sam asked, and Dean could hear the mounting frustration in his voice.

"I don't know everything he's planning okay, he shut down on me. But there's been lights at night … it's a sign, a harbinger of things to come. He's doing _something _right. Well, right by his standards. He's not going to stop, you know. Either he hasn't gathered all his elements, or his ritual just needs work, I don't know.

"If he hasn't gathered everything he needs, what are we looking for?"

To Dean's surprise, the man in front of him dropped his shaggy head and gave a humourless laugh.

"I thought I already told you I wasn't stupid. You think I haven't been all the way down this road? I don't want to die because one asshole stuffed up the esoteric version of Prison Break. If I couldn't talk him out of it and I'm not in the business of binding, cursing, hexing, washing his memory or otherwise screwing with him, then I'd go for the ritual, rather than the man. I would read the signs just like you're trying to, catch him in the act, destroy the things he needs for this to work. When I put the manuscript into the mix, I figured that was my best bet. Destroy the text he's basing this on, anything he's put down on paper independently, and whatever else that looks important that I can destroy, maybe I can stop him without having to hurt him."

"Okay, smart move, and you're a self-confessed smart guy. So?"

"Too many variables," Sam's voice lamented softly from his side, and Dean jerked him a look. Realization was settling over Sam's expression, and he looked as though he wasn't enjoying it.

"Bingo," agreed the guy in the doorway grimly. "It could be one of ten million things, and multiplying exponentially. I can't spend the rest of my life running around after every insignificant event because it _might _indicate some psycho knocking on the gates of Hell. And neither can you. And anyway, what are you going to do if by some miracle you catch up to him before he completes it? Put a bullet in his brain? You're hunters, and he's human."

"He is potentially ending the world," Sam snarled suddenly, the venom in his tone surprising Dean. "Letting demons loose on the world, potentially killing millions of people. He's going down, human or not."

Pale eyes went round, and for the first time since they had met him, the guy had nothing to say. Sadness settled over Dean - yeah, both he and Sam knew how it felt being the trigger man. The guy who pushed The Button. Sam's vehemence was as much regret and self-recrimination as validation. Sam claimed the guilt of everything that happened that year before Hell took him had been burned out in Lucifer's cage. He also said he was fine and whatever effects these trials were having wasn't happening. His brother, the open book.

"You can't just sit back and wait for the blast wave," Dean told the man before him, dragging his thoughts away from the past.

"I don't have any other choice. Neither do you, or anyone else, apparently including Jeremiah. You can't find him, you can't track his ritual with any kind of certainty."

"Yeah, well we're going to try," Dean insisted, aware of Sam's silence at his side.

"Knock yourselves out," replied the man before him dryly. "But you better hurry - there's been a three degree fluctuation in temperature in the area and that could mean it's now Hell on Earth."


	4. Chapter 3 - Moving in for the Kill

"For the last time, I don't give a rat's ass what he said, Sam. We're going to find this guy and take care of this. Something will stick out and it ain't going to be a three degree temperature change."

"Yeah, it might be a unseasonable storm or a cold shift or a thousand other things."

Dean looked up from the laptop to scowl at him, trying not to think of the 66 seals deal, chosen at random from hundreds of possibilities.

"Human psycho, remember? No demons, no ghosts. So neither of those."

"Dean -"

"I don't want to hear it, Sam. You're supposed to be the optimist in this partnership, remember? You're a Man of Letters now, pal. That means you have to get that gigantor brain of yours into gear, stop whining and figure it out."

Sam may have pouted at him.

"You really think we can pull this off?"

"Yes I do," Dean replied with enough conviction that he hoped convinced both of them. "Now, get your research on. Based on that manuscript, how could this guy be improvising? And if he is, what are the signs going to be? What's missing from that that he'll need to add to pull it off? What would be the most likely substitute? Come on, Sam."

Sam pulled in a sigh, rolled off the bed and sat down in the chair facing Dean.

"Okay, so fire is definitely a sign that he's working out the kinks. Some things were harmless enough for him to get without it getting complicated - the herbs and salts he got from the conjure guy, the summoning was a basic one, presumably he alters that to fit soul. He has the blood sacrifice."

He folded his lips, considering. "Maybe …"

"Maybe?"

"Nah I just - I don't see where the power's coming from. This guy is human. I know we've met powerful witches before, but I don't think that's this guy. If he was he wouldn't have had to ask the questions that tipped the supplier off, exposing himself. So where, or what, is the battery?"

"Well, Charles Brandt died via hellhound. This was all based on a crossroads deal, right? Maybe Jerry plans to trap the demon who sealed the deal on Charles, force it to help him somehow."

Sam shook his head. "It wouldn't have the power, either. Remember what Ruby said? No demon can raise a soul from Hell, no matter what he does to it."

"Hey … wait a second. That whole mess with Cas and Crowley was all about the souls. Bobby healed Cas with the power of _his _soul, right? And Death - he said it was all about the souls. Maybe that covers this, too. Do demons have souls?"

"I suppose technically speaking demons are nothing but soul," Sam replied, frowning at him.

"Okay, so, maybe a demon can't throw around that kind of weight, Bobby sure as hell couldn't heal angels on his own, but maybe Jerry found some way to use the demon itself as a source of energy. Think about it, if magic is all connections, the best connection you're gonna get to Hell is a demon. And a crossroads deal is an exchange, right? Maybe that works both ways, symbolically. Jerry uses the power of the demon soul and its Hell connection to open a hole, a flaw just enough for one soul to pass, exchanging the power of one soul for power over the other. And hey, poetic justice - he's sending the thing that got Charles stuck there back to Hell, and pulling him out at the same time. It works."

Sam stared at him a moment, his brain turning over so fast Dean could almost hear it whirring, before he crunched up his expression and rubbed his face with his hands, elbows propped on the table.

"This is exactly what the conjure shop guy was talking about. We don't _know _this, Dean. Yeah it works, and its really likely you're right, but a hundred other scenarios work too and are just as likely. And maybe it's not even something we're familiar with. There have been things in the Letters library that I wouldn't even have thought possible before we found it. It could be _anything._"

"Humour me, okay? Process of elimination. We cook up a scenario that sounds likely, we road test it. Rinse, repeat."

He spread his hands in a gesture that said _go with it, brother._

"We might be kinda on the clock here," Sam said, but his argument was losing strength.

"Yeah and maybe we aren't. Maybe Jerry is just as screwed as we are. We don't _know _that, either. It can't hurt. I say we trap a crossroads demon, which we _know _Charles Brandt summoned and reasonably recently, make it tell us who made the deal, or we stab it in the face."

"Yeah, okay," Sam finally conceded with a sigh, casting around for his jacket. "But if we do have a time limit, we better start this now."

Sam and Dean stood, covering each other, at the dark intersection of a suitably out-of-the-way backstreet. At their feet, the fire from Dean's tossed lighter fizzled out on the pavement, leaving behind the scorched outline of a devil's trap.

"Reactive chemicals, what a bitch," Dean greeted the demon standing inside, which looked up at him, eyes flashing red.

"Dean Winchester. What a surprise. Miss Hell that much?"

"You don't wanna be a wise-ass," he growled.

"No, it just comes naturally. To what do I owe the pleasure? Your brother is alive, so everything should just be hearts and flowers."

"I want to know who made the deal on Charles Brandt."

"And I should know because?"

"Because you're a crossroads demon, you're working this corner which probably means you're slutting all over this town, which means it was probably you."

He smiled, drawing Ruby's knife from his waistband to tilt it between his fingers.

"And if you don't know, I have no reason to let you live."

The pretty twenty-something woman's face twisted into a bitchy expression only a demon could muster.

"It wasn't me."

"Then who was it?"

"Why tell you? You're likely to stick that thing wherever you want regardless of what I say. If it's all the same I'd rather die with the satisfaction of fucking up your day."

"Clearly you haven't spoken to your boss lately," Sam said. "We could have burned Crowley out of Hell itself when we had his bones. But a deal's a deal - isn't that what you guys are all about? We make you one, you tell us who made the deal and we summon it. If it's true, we let you out, we all go our separate ways."

The demon was silent a moment, weighing options.

"You can't," it relented eventually.

"Can't what?" Sam demanded.

"You can't summon the demon who made the deal."

"Why?"

"He's missing. Missing for days now."

"Well that just works well for everyone, doesn't it. We summon him - he's found," Dean grinned.

"Don't you think Hell has better ways of summoning demons than you meatsacks and your rambling Latin? Hell can't find him either, jackass. And there's only two reasons for that - he's dead, or someone has him bound already."

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.

"It's true. I can't prove it, but it is. Going to let me out, or would you rather make another transaction?"

"Don't push it," Dean warned, pointing at it with the knife.

The demon smiled, eyes flashing red.

Dean glanced at Sam, who narrowed his eyes at the demon.

"What is the name of the demon?"

"Asrael. I never liked him much anyway."

Sam leaned in close to his brother, his voice pitched low.

"It might be telling us the truth, but without being able to summon this Asrael, we can't know for sure."

Dean looked back at the demon.

"Nah, I say we can her ass anyway. One less demon in this town, everybody wins."

"I told you the truth! I figure my chances of getting out of this alive were better that way. And screw Asrael, if he got himself trapped, it's his own problem."

"I wouldn't climb up on your high horse, given the circumstances," Dean advised, indicating the devil's trap with the knife.

"Look, I told you what you needed to know, I swear. Let me out, and I'll go. You won't see me in this shitty town again."

Sam bent, dashing water over the scorched trap. By the time he had straightened up, the demon had vanished.

"Should so have canned her," Dean groused for at least the tenth time.

"But she may actually have told us the truth," Sam replied, a book open in one hand, his fingers against the page. "There is a demon by the name of Asrael - and get this, _of bargains struck and souls wagered. _It's a crossroads demon."

"That's wonderful Sam," Dean replied sarcastically. "I really hope it made your night. But since you're so hot on proof, where's the proof that she didn't just give us the name of some random demon she's pissed at to save her own ass?"

"Do we have any yarrow?"

"It's in the trunk," Dean jerked a thumb at the motel room window, the impala just visible through the stained mesh, and turned away, circling the table. "We should have stuck the knife in her smartass mouth. Why do I listen to you?"

But he was talking to thin air. Sam was apparently hot on the trail of their yarrow supply. Dean growled indignantly and flopped into the chair by the table, arms crossed. Sam stumbled back in, arms full.

"You want proof?" he asked, dumping the contents on the table infront of his brother. "Fine. We try summoning it. If it turns up, we set the trap and give it the same choice we gave her. Spill or die. If it doesn't - well, she was telling us the truth. Either some hunter somewhere has already wiped this thing out, or just maybe, Jeremiah Brandt is using it for rocket fuel."

"Fine," Dean said, hearing the petulant sarcasm in his voice but unable to do much about it.

Sam cleared the table, drew the sigil for the demon on the plastic surface with a sharpie, ringed it in a devil's trap of the same invisible chemical mix they had used at the crossroads, positioned and lit the three candles, added the herbs and took up the book. He began the Latin invocation as Dean poured the powder mix into one cupped palm, the process of demon summoning more familiar than it should have been for a hunter. Sam reached the end and nodded, Dean casting the powder into the flame. There was a sharp flash - and nothing. No Asrael. Sam lowered his hand from shielding his eyes and grinned triumphantly at his brother.

"Looks like you were right."

"You don't _know _that," Dean echoed Sam's earlier words, half in jest, half in irritation.

Sam gave him a quick smile, dropping the book onto the table, his eyes alight.

"So, what now Yoda?"

Dean stared at him. Despite Sam insisting he wanted that normal life - a mundane 9-5 job, a home, a woman who loved him, a goddamn _dog, _he had chosen Dean and the hunt over all that. Dean hadn't let himself feel the warmth of that, fearing it was short-lived, that Sam would come to his senses and ditch him for a better life, but he allowed himself a moment to bask as Sam quickened on the chase, asking Dean for advice. There was so much Sam could have had. He was crazy smart, his record at Stanford would have got him accepted at any college, and Dean knew he had made enquiries. He could have had Amelia - as much as it hurt, Dean had given him that ultimatum. In or out, one life, or the other. He would have respected his brother's decision whether he liked it or not. Sam had _chosen _this. Chosen him. It was what they were, at the core. Blood. Winchesters, in it together.

"What?" Sam questioned with a frown.

Dean realized he was staring at him silently, smoothed his expression and cleared his throat.

"Nothing. So, okay, this demon is dead or bound. How do we find out which?"

"Find Jeremiah Brandt," Sam said.

Dean threw up his hands. "Then we're back to square one! Possibilities multiplying exponentially and all that crap."

Sam smiled at Dean's quotation of the esoteric supplier and sat down in front of the book, dragging a hand over his mouth.

"Okay, lets just go on what we think we know," Sam began. "Charles Brandt, for whatever reason, made a crossroads deal, and paid the price. Jeremiah Brandt did everything he could to spring him - theft, arson, assault, God knows what else. He summons and traps the crossroads demon responsible, out of revenge, but also because the demon soul has enough power, connection, and exchange to breach Hell enough to summon Charles' soul out. He contacts the conjure guy because of a few holes, but doesn't get everything he needs because of the guy's suspicion. What's his next move?"

"He tries the ritual again," Dean followed through on his brother's speculation. "If Asrael has been missing for days, he should be almost ready."

"Fighting fire with fire," Sam responded.

"But that doesn't make sense," Dean argued. "If he lights a fire to connect to a hole in Hell, the city responds in what, under ten minutes? It's not long enough to pull off a whole ritual. He wouldn't have enough time."

"Then he goes outside city limits," Sam replied, booting up the laptop. "Yep, all the fires were at least twenty minutes drive, even for a fire crew. He'd just make it."

"Sneaky bastard," Dean said, shaking his head.

"Looking more and more like this is our scenario," Sam conceded.

"Yeah, but how do you anticipate something like that?" Dean challenged. "Even if we scanned the emergency frequencies, we'd get there the same time as fire crews and cops. Less than ideal."

Sam scratched at the stubble on his chin. "We're good at finding squats, after that whole Dick Roman thing, right?"

Dean tried to bury the lingering hurt and confusion over his brother not looking for him after the exploding Dick incident, when he was stuck in Purgatory for a year fighting for his life while Sam played house, and focus on the job at hand. It was safer that way.

"Okay."

"Well, we go find some wreck on city limits and wait for the call."

"Sam, we have four choices and no favourites here. North, South, East or West, take your pick."

Sam tapped at the laptop. "According to the media releases, the fires were all west of the township. People always head west."

His words echoed Dean's own thoughts, hunts ago. He pushed it away.

"Alright, if we have nothing else to go on."

"This is going to work, Dean. I can feel it," Sam insisted, closing the laptop.

Dean suddenly wished he was as convinced.

"Okay, this is the closest we can find given the timing, according to the media release," Sam said, clumping down the stairs of the abandoned old farmhouse.

They had considered simply sleeping in the impala somewhere in the area the fires had been reported, but decided against it in case they did actually found Jeremiah Brandt, and Asrael, if he was still alive. They needed a base to drag them back to, somewhere to keep the demon bound and keep Jeremiah from punching holes in Hell.

"I painted a devil's trap on the floor in the upstairs bedroom, given Asrael is still in one piece, and we can tie Jeremiah to a chair when we find him."

"Slow your roll Sammy, there's no guarantee this is going to work."

"Oh no it'll work," Sam replied immediately, and Dean smiled at him tiredly. It'd work just because it had to, because it was their only shot at stopping Armageddon - again. Dean pushed, feeling the need to temper Sam, curb some of his expectations.

"Remember Einstein from the conjure shop - he said Jeremiah couldn't be found, couldn't be tracked. This had probably occurred to him too."

Sam looked down at him and crossed his arms.

"Why are you so down on this?"

Dean held up his hands. "It was just an idea is all. We've just got to keep shooting until we hit something. Maybe not on our first shot is all I'm saying."

"Yeah, well maybe I don't give a rat's ass what that guy said either," Sam quoted Dean. "And anyway, we're not tracking him that way, trying to follow the signs. We're following the locations of the fires. He has to leave at least twenty minutes between him, and the fire-fighters. He needs something significant to burn. This area is the only place you get both of those."

Dean nodded, but let it go.

Four hours and half a carton of cold, leftover takeout Chinese later, Dean was asleep. They'd had a few rough nights, there was no sense of imminent, tear-your-head-off danger, and he was bored. He was stretched out on his back on the floor of the living room, not entirely uncomfortably. It was true, the time they had spent off the grid when Leviathans were busy commercializing evil had taught them a thing or two. He was stopping that train of thought right there.

Sam had been up with the information he'd collected from the reference books, trying to predict what Jeremiah's cobbled ritual was likely to look like. It would be helpful in taking it apart before he sprung the leak. Despite what he'd said to the conjure guy, Dean knew Sam was taking a leaf from his book and looking for a way to stop Jerry without hurting him.

The police scanner crackled next to his foot, the operator's voice coming through in tinny immitation.

"Got a call in for a fire, out on county road nine, fire crews informed."

Some local cop's voice answered, but Sam was off his chair as if it had burned his ass and was slapping at Dean's boot.

"Come on."

Dean sat up more slowly. "We rollin'?"

"There's a fire, barely five minutes from here. Get up, the fire crew's already tagged, we don't have much time."

Everything from Sam's research already prepacked, Dean obliged and broke a few speed limits in the heavy darkness outside the town, before the glow of the fire stained the sky, and Sam pointed uselessly. If this was Jerry Brandt, then the guy was making good use of the abandoned, derelict farmhouses too. The whole place was lit up as Dean swung the impala to a stop, propelling his brother out the door. Sam grabbed the duffel from the trunk and set off at a run, Dean on his heels, caution making him draw the colt before he even registered it.

The heat was intense, spinning Dean's mind as it always did back to the night his mother died, Sam heavy in his young arms. _Take your brother outside, Now Dean, go! _He squinted up at the crumbling wood, debris already falling, embers spiralling up into the sky. Sam was infront of him, a six foot five silhouette, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the light and find whoever had set the fire.

They rounded the corner farthest from the road, and Sam stopped so suddenly that Dean almost ran into him.

"Hey!"

Dean followed Sam's line of sight, just as the silhoutte of a man, standing facing the fire with his arms outstretched, startled and turned to face them. The light of the fire washed one side of his face, highlighting dark hair, a pale face and frightened eyes. Sam was on him in a heartbeat, raising his own Taurus at the man in question. Dean mirrored him on the other side.

"Stop," Sam ordered.

"You don't understand," the man insisted, and Dean clenched his teeth. Son of a bitch - Jerry Brandt.

"You're punching a hole into Hell. Stop what you're doing, get on the ground."

"I can't," Jerry insisted. "Please, just leave me alone, I have to."

Dean had heard enough. He shoved the colt into his belt and grabbed Jerry, twisting his arm hard behind his back.

"No no, please, don't, I have to finish this please, let me go."

Sam was frowning, gun still drawn on Jerry, Dean again mirroring his expression. Something wasn't right. At this point, usually whatever nasty they had collared started attacking them, throwing some mojo their way, at least hurling a few threats. But the man in Dean's grip was doing nothing more than twisting uselessly and pleading. He looked terrified. Sam swallowed and flexed his fingers around the reciever.

"Where's the demon, what have you done to it?"

"I need it, please just walk away."

"Answer the question," Dean demanded in a growl, twisting Jerry's arm further up his back until he jerked in pain.

"No," Jerry gasped, "it's important, I need that demon."

Sam was looking around them, but Asrael was nowhere in sight, and Jerry would have needed him close for the ritual. The elements of said ritual were laid out before them, and Dean's eyes skittered over them in the firelight. His mind jumped back several years and many more hunts ago to the curse boxes in Dad's lockup. His gaze caught on a tall, black vessel covered in white sigils.

"Sam," he tilted his chin at it.

Sam was on his wavelength, moving to pick up the vessel.

"No don't, _don't!_" Jerry pleaded again, twisting in Dean's grip. "This isn't what you think, you can't stop me now, God _please, _I have to finish it!"

"Sam, grab up all that crap and we split, we're kinda on the clock here. We'll figure all this out back at the farmhouse."

Sam nodded and began gathering the ritual items, but it was a step too far for Jerry. The man screamed in Dean's grip, twisting, and Dean felt his shoulder dislocate. He was turning up the ground beneath him thrashing at it with his boots, desperately trying to free himself and save the ritual. He apparently had no interest in hurting Dean - just that desperate drive to finish the ritual. Something wasn't adding up, but regardless, he couldn't deal with Jerry freaking out all the way back to the house. He managed to palm the colt from his belt, and bought it down hard on Jerry's temple.

The man went silent and still in his arms, and Dean hefted him into a graceless fireman's carry. Ironic, given they were the very people he and Sam were keen on avoiding.

Dean followed his brother back to the impala, dumping the still unconscious Jerry on the back seat, tying his hands and feet in case he came to. They peeled away back out onto the road just as the first sirens screamed distantly in the darkness.


	5. Chapter 4 - Backtrack

Jerry was still out cold by the time Dean hauled him out of the impala and tied him securely to a washed up wooden chair back at the old farmhouse. Sam retrieved his ritual items, handling the black vessel, presumably containing Asrael, carefully. He improvised a devil's trap with a sharpie and placed the vessel inside. Just in case.

Despite the fact that they were almost used to breach Hell, potentially flooding earth with it, Dean could see Sam's interest as he laid out Jerry's scattered supplies. He grinned behind his back, the massive geek.

Jerry chose that moment to come to. He groaned, moving sluggishly, until he tried to move his arms. Dean could almost see the realization that he was tied to a chair slam into him, and his head snapped up. He writhed against his bonds, head whipping around frantically, taking in his surroundings. His wide eyes snagged on Dean, half-sitting on the old table, watching him.

"No, no no no no! You can't - you have to - I have to finish it, please let me go!"

"You're like a broken record, pal," Dean told him dryly. "And it's going to take more than that to get anywhere but tied to that chair. So try singing us a different song, okay?"

"You don't understand," Jerry groaned, dropping his head back.

"We understand alright," Sam joined his brother. "We get that Charles Brandt made a crossroads deal and paid his due. We get that you stole the manuscripts and freaked out one conjure supplier trying to work a ritual to punch a hole into Hell and summon Charles' soul out. We know you summoned and trapped Asrael, the demon responsible for the deal, somehow displacing it from whoever it was possessing and using its soul as fuel."

Jerry had tilted his face down to stare wide-eyed at Sam. For once, he wasn't struggling and repeating over and over that they had to let him go, he had to finish, blah blah. Dean crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at their guest.

"We know the conjure supplier told you what could happen if you went through with this," Sam continued when Jerry stayed silent. "You were willing to break the dam on Hell, and didn't care how many people you killed or how many demons you let loose in the process. We know all we need to."

"No it - that guy, all that stuff he told me, it was all bullshit he was just trying to scare me," Jerry suddenly insisted. "How do you know all that anyway?"

Sam met Dean's eyes over Jerry's head, both brothers clearly on the same base - _what the? _

"You had to know that it was only a matter of time before hunters had your ass," Dean insisted back. He was testing the water … an uncomfortable idea was taking shape in the back of his head.

Jerry twisted his head, trying to look at Dean.

"Hunters? I'm not a goddamn dear, what the hell are you talking about?"

Sam was shaking his head at Dean, and he could almost hear his little brother's voice - _unbelievable. _Dean moved to stand by Sam, each adopting the defensive, bladed positions without noticing.

"So what, this is all a joke to you? You have absolutely no clue what you're doing, you're a fucking kid with an oija board, is that it?"

This was insane. The world had just potentially been flooded with hellspawn by one clueless asshole and an old book.

"No I - Look, I never even believed in any of this. I'm a lapsed Lutheran, I'm not into devils and demons and all that, I thought it was all bullshit until - untl I found out it wasn't. But I read everything I could about it, it wouldn't have gone wrong, I had it all worked out. I had to succeed."

Dean frowned. He'd never known anyone with multiple personalities, but that's how it was beginning to feel talking to this guy. One minute he was a jibbering idiot with absolutely no idea what he was talking about, the next a line of cold steel slipped into his tone, turning him into a different animal.

"Why. Why are you doing this? People die every day, didn't anyone ever tell you that's a natural part of life?" Dean asked, feeling massively hypocritical and attempting to stop his mind from wandering back to Cold Oak, so long ago. _I couldn't deal with you dead. Couldn't do it. _

In front of him, Jeremiah Brandt pulled in a breath and closed his eyes.

"Because all this is because of me. It's my fault."

There was a solid weight in his tone that Dean didn't like at all.

"Alright," he said, trying to keep his own trepidation out of his voice. He dragged a chair over and sat down facing Jerry. "Spill. How is this your fault? Woman? Bad decision? Debts you couldn't settle yourself, what? And what's Charles Brandt to you? I'm taking a wild shot in the dark and guessing family member."

Jeremiah Brandt looked up at him, and whatever Dean saw pooling in the backs of his eyes made his stomach drop. At that moment he knew Sam's geekazoid treasure-hunt of a job was about to turn into a hunt that was going to hurt.

Jerry's voice was rough with sorrow, the voice of Dean's worst nightmare.

"He's my brother."

Both Winchesters stared silently at Jeremiah Brandt. Dean could sense Sam dropping his arms from crossed over his chest to hang by his sides, a gesture of shock in his brother familiar to Dean. That inkling of some shared sympathy he had felt for Jeremiah back at his apartment saturated him now. So that's what this was all about - and Dean knew this story intimately. Jerry's brother had got himself hell-bound, and Jerry was willing to do anything it took to set him free.

Dean heard the catch in Sam's breath at his side, and doubled his sympathy for his brother. Sam had been sitting exactly where Jerry was. His brother in Hell, his hope dwindling, every avenue a dead end. Jerry's utter desperation suddenly made an awful kind of sense.

"Tell us," Sam's voice said gently, and Dean wondered at how his little brother could go from a stone-cold hunter, a predator, to a soft-eyed sap in seconds. "Tell us how it happened."

Jeremiah took a deep breath, and began.

"You may not know it to look at me, but I'm a medical miracle. About six months ago, I got sick. I thought it was just some bug, maybe something I came across at work. It was just all the usual stuff - felt sick, puked a few times, couldn't keep anyting down so my weight started dropping, stomach ache. Sounds harmless, huh? But after it'd been going on for a few weeks, it started getting ridiculous and I was missing work, so went to the doctor. And it wasn't a bug. It was stage three pancreatic cancer. By the time I knew it was already too late, they told me. Charlie argued, asked why they wouldn't start me on chemo, or radiation treatment, or even some kind of medication that could treat it. He said there had to be something they could do. They told him it was already too late, that I wouldn't survive the treatment and die anyway. I was dying and that's all there was to it. They gave me roughly three months, and a discharge paper."

Jerry broke off, lowering his head as if bracing himself for the next part of his story. It was obvious to Dean that being diagnosed with terminal cancer was far from the worst thing that had happened to Jeremiah Brandt. He was soon proven right.

"Charlie and me kind of had a rough time growing up. Mother died when I was a baby, and it shoved dad into a bottle. He was angry at the world, at everything, and Charlie and me were the closest things to take that out on. He died from a drug overdose when I was seven, Charlie was thirteen. We went into foster after that, and it all got worse until Charlie took guardianship the day he turned eighteen. After a life like that - we never held onto relationships long, never had much schooing, so stayed blue-collar, y'know? After the diagnosis I stayed with Charlie, a hospice nurse came every day. But … with no treatment and an estimate of three months, things were only going to get worse until it was finally over. My brother was facing down three months of watching me die, until he eventually put me in the ground. Three months of watching the cancer eat through me, watch me waste away, watch when the pain finally hit, unable to do anything to help."

He swallowed, and Dean closed his eyes. He could think of absolutely nothing worse. God, if that had been Sam - Hell, far too recently it _had _been Sam, slowly dying from the scars he bore from Hell. Selfsame Hell Charles Brandt was suffering right now, and Jeremiah knew it. To watch his little brother slowly suffer and die like that - It was pure horror.

"Go on, Jerry," Sam encouraged, his voice soft, and Dean chanced a glance at him. His expression was twisted into profound pity. While Dean had been hit by the utter horror of that situation, it was obvious from Sam's expression that he felt only pity and sympathy for the Brandt brothers. Maybe that was a title card of what made them different.

"I uh …" it was obvious this was getting harder for Jerry to get through, and Dean silently willed him to go on, even if it could possibly get any worse.

"I think maybe it sent Charlie kind of nuts. First he started looking into all these experimental treatments, the kind of stuff you paid thousands for in some clinic in Mexico. He made call after call, to hospitals and transplant committees and alternative medicine practitioners. It was always the same. He told them what was wrong with me, and they told him nothing could be done. I guess he was running out of options, but as weeks went by, he called in faith healers and conjure men and even some woman who said she was a witch. He was willing to believe anything, if only it would save me. Then one day, I woke up and I was fine. Just fine. The pain was gone, I didn't feel sick at all, I felt stronger than I had ever felt and I was starving. Charlie was nowhere to be found, and he turned up a few hours later. The look on his face when he saw me … I'll never forget that look. He refused to believe it at first. He took me to a regional hospital, somewhere where they'd never heard of us, and made me get a medical. He slipped in that I had been unwell recently, citing some of the earlier symptoms of the cancer. The doctor said there was absolutely no traces of cancer in my body, blood tests had proven it. Charlie insisted they give me a CT to make absolutely sure, telling him that a family member had died that way. Still, no cancer. I was cured. It was then that Charlie started to look worried, and I got over myself long enough to ask what was wrong. He told me he had come across this crazy story in one of the books he'd been reading towards the end, when he was out of hope and had nothing else. Said he met some crazy guy who said he could save me, that was easy, but there was a price. And Charlie …"

"Asrael," Sam supplied, surreptitiously giving Jerry a break. "The demon in the jar. Your brother made a crossroads deal. His soul, for your life."

Dean dipped his head, feeling suddenly self-conscious. He knew where those words came from. It was exactly the deal he had made for Sam. For _his _little brother, when Sam's body was cooling in front of him and he had screwed up his one job, failed everyone he had ever loved. He hated this.

Jerry nodded. "I thought it was all bullshit, I mean spontaneous remission happens right? Usually not when people are as far gone as I was, but medical miracles happen and no one can explain it. How could one guy I had never even met cure me because Charlie agreed to sell him his soul? It was nuts, it was the stress of losing me talking. Charlie didn't look so sure. By then it was getting late, and I remember I said we should both just get some sleep and we'd talk about it in the morning. But that night … that night I woke up to this … noise. At first I didn't know what it was, but then I realized it was someone screaming. I never imagined a man could make that kind of noise. My first thought was to make sure Charlie was okay, but when I got to his bedroom and opened the door … God I was already too late."

"Son of a bitch," Dean whispered. "He didn't even give Charlie the ten years."

It was getting eerie how similar the Brandt brothers' story was to their own. Oh he knew how Charlie had felt. He remembered vividly what it was like to be torn apart by hellhounds, his brother unable to stop them. This job had just done a complete one-eighty on him.

Jerry shook his head. "That … thing, told me it offered Charlie a straight trade, his soul for my life, no rainchecks. And Charlie took it."

He squeezed his eyes closed and continued tightly, deliberately.

"They said it was an animal attack. But I was three rooms away, and whatever killed him didn't come for me. The doors were locked, there was no sign of an animal. I didn't see an animal when I opened that door, or hear anything, until I heard Charlie, screaming."

A single tear slipped down Jerry's face, and he dipped his chin.

Something in Dean's chest twisted, and he looked at Sam. His brother was sitting too, hands loosely laced between his knees, his head low. Something about the posture looked like respect, and Dean knew their own past was flooding Sam too. Though his brother was usually a mystery to Dean, he tried to see this from Sam's perspective, only partially to keep himself from falling into his own memories. Jerry was in a very similar position to where Sam had been, and the insight might prove useful at understanding and predicting Jerry.

Dying, either by illness as Jerry had done, or murdered as Sam had been. Only to wake up fine again, and realize your big brother had made a incomprehensible decision - to sacrifice his soul for your life. Trying and failing to stop it, and knowing he was suffering in Hell the longer you failed to save him. To feel like it was all your fault, as Jerry had said.

Dean looked back at Jerry, who was systematically breathing slowly and deeply as if walking the edge of falling apart.

Sam's hand on his shoulder surprised Dean. Sam tilted his head in the opposite direction from Jerry, and stood up. Dean followed him.

Sam turned to half-face him, crossing his arms, voice low.

"What're we going to do?"

"I dunno," Dean said heavily, shaking his head, looking back at Jerry sadly. "I guess all we can do is what that conjure guy was going to. Destroy the ritual elements, banish Asrael if we can't kill him in soul-form, let Jerry go, hoping he can't recreate the ritual without those. That manuscript was there, right? Maybe without that and without the demon who damned Charlie, it can't be done."

He looked up at Sam when his brother's silence stretched past natural.

Sam was watching him with a strangely worried expression.

"What?" Dean asked.

"I don't know, Dean. I mean we have been exactly where this guy is. Where his brother is. We know what this is _like, _man. We were thinking Jeremiah Brandt was some kind of witch, right? That he was evil. Look at him, Dean. That's not evil. And from what he said about Charles, he wasn't a bad guy. He was the kind of guy who would sacrifice himself for his family. "

"What are you getting at, Sam?"

"Maybe … maybe what you said to the conjure guy was backwards. Maybe we should help him, not stop him."

Dean stared at him. "Have you gone _completely _nuts? Again?"

Sam pursed his lips. "I know it sounds crazy -"

"That's because it is crazy, Sam," Dean replied roughly, fighting against the rising tide inside him that agreed with Sam with every instinct he had. "You said it yourself, ripping open Hell would be like opening the devil's gate again, like raising Lucifer, like starting the apocalypse. Flooding the world with demons, killing shitloads of innocent people, any of this coming back to you?"

"Dean, just listen -"

"No," Dean snapped, turning away from Sam before he lost his resolve. "No, we can't do this, no matter how much we want to. What happened to Jerry and his brother is horrible, but that's life, Sam. What good ever came out of us doing exactly what they did? What we're even thinking about doing? Gabriel was right, man. It's all blood and pain, all of it."

Sam said nothing, and Dean paced in a loose circle, one hand at his hip, the other rubbing distractedly at his mouth. He finally turned back to look at Sam, who rolled his eyes up to his brother's face.

"He's not going to stop, you know. Would you have stopped? No matter what? All we'd be doing is slowing him down, and who knows, in one year or ten years, maybe he finds another way. Something worse. The whole time, Charles Brandt is burning in Hell for nothing worse than loving his brother. Hell, if not for anything else, it's his _brother, _Dean. "

Dean stared at him, feeling defeat start to crawl up his back. Worse, it wasn't unwelcome. Sam was making sense after all, right? He often did. Even with the mountain of baggage between them, _brother_ still stood for something.

"Just do nothing for a while, and give me some time to look over Jerry's ritual. That's all I'm asking right now, just gimme some time."

"Alright, fine," Dean replied. "This is nuts, but okay. I guess I go untie Jerry."

An hour later, a bemused Jerry's shoulder reset, a chow run made, and all the cobbled parts of the ritual studied, Sam rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms above his head. Dean glanced up at him from Jerry's edged handwriting. Had to hand it to the guy - for an amateur, he had done some solid research. He had worried they'd broken the guy when, much to Jerry's surprise, Dean had cut him free and said they weren't making any promises, but there might be a chance they could help him. Dean had vaguely advised him to put his head between his knees, as Jerry started to hyperventilate. After that, it had been a bit of Reality 101 for Jeremiah Brandt. He knew a little about demons and deals because the only thought in his head for four months had been freeing Charlie from Hell. He knew nothing more of the supernatural at all. He had no idea what a hunter was apart from guys in camo who shot deer in the woods, so Dean's explanation of how they could help him break his brother out of Hell was difficult to understand. But Jerry was now in Charlie's shoes - his brother was in trouble and he was running out of ideas. If these guys offered to help, he wasn't going to turn them down.

Dean blinked up at Sam. "Whatcha think?"

Sam blew out his breath, thumping his hands back onto the stolen manuscript. "Yeah, I think maybe it might have worked."

"And the … side effects?"

"Those too," Sam nodded.

"I made sure," Jerry repeated his argument. "The demon is one soul, just enough to make the connection to both Hell and Charlie, with just enough power to weaken the divide, not enough to cause the kind of damage you're talking about."

"It's just that you never know what something on the other side is going to do," Sam told him. "Demons are always desperate to crawl out. They saw a breach, even one small enough to call out one human soul, they could take advantage from the other side."

"So … what do we do?" Jerry asked.

"That, grasshopper, is the sixty-four thousand dollar question," Dean answered. "The rest of it's kosher, but that? That's going to be a problem. We can't be responsible for that kind of cockup."

He glanced at Sam, the thought bouncing between them - _again. _

"There must be _something_ you can do_,_" Jerry insisted, unknowingly quoting Charlie in a similar position.

"Alright," Sam pushed the text away. "The problem is, if we weaken the divide enough to summon Charlie's soul, we risk spilling the whole dam."

Dean and Jerry nodded at him.

"Then we need a way to contain anything that comes through, long enough to banish it back to the pit."

"You make it sound so easy," Dean said sarcastically.

"Can you even do something like that?" Jerry enquired, his expression one of studying roadkill.

"I remember something in the Letters library, something about Hell and its denizens I read after Abadon. Damn it, what was it?"

"Need a vessel or something," Dean said absently, his eyes on the black container trapping Asrael.

Sam shot him a look. "You're a goddamn genius."

"Careful Sammy, you start telling me that too often and it'll go to my head."

"No no, you don't get it," Sam insisted, shaking his hands at Dean and sounding a little too much like Jerry.

"It's been there in the devil's traps, in the binding sigils on the vessel, in those old curse boxes of dad's. All that stuff works on the same principle - binding magic, keeping evil at bay. You or me could walk right through a devil's trap, but a demon is helpless, even ten times more powerful than a human. And Charlie - well, he hasn't been there long enough yet. Plus the only reason he's there at all was because of his own sacrifice. Anything built to contain demons, Charlie could still pass right through. I think it'd work."

"You better be damn sure Sam," Dean warned, eyes narrowed. "Because if we make that breach and Hell spills out -"

"I know. It's a risk. But you have to remember, all that stuff was only ever a really strong possibility. It was never a guarantee. Just, you know, a really good reason not to do it."

He started shuffling through books and papers, and Dean shook his head at him.

"You know, you scare the shit out of me when you say stuff like that."

Dean was thinking of the broken half of a crystal ball they had found along with the belladonna at Jerry's apartment. He could see the similarity. It better damn well work, was all he could think about. He didn't think he could take opening that up on the world, not again. The guilt would eat him alive.

He stood again outside the abandoned wreck of a farmhouse he and Sam had squatted in, tracking down Jerry. Funny, that his problems were now their own. Time constraint was eased between the three of them, and Sam had modified Jerry's ritual to cut out a lot of needless elements, but there would still be the cops and the fire department to avoid - this was looking like an arsonist on a spree, and they were bound to be watchful. He got the need for it. Fire was Hell's element, and the power of the blaze fed the ritual. They couldn't exactly burrow a hole in Hell over a lighter in a motel room. Still, the predictability of it made him edgy.

Sam was somewhere on the other side of the house, taking as little chances as he could. The place was ringed in a giant devil's trap, spray-painted onto the dead grass. Beyond it, Sam had laid the beacon points for Dean's "vessel," a binding force working by much of the same principles.

Jerry was with him, setting up the elements of his own ritual.

Dean looked at his feet. The black vessel containing Asrael looked oddly innocent for something with a demon inside it. It was unlikely the thing itself would be making an appearance, judging by the steps in Jerry's ritual. Beside it, the blood of Jerry's near-victim, the bones of Charles Brandt, a stock supply of the herb and salt mixture, the stolen manuscripts, a Latin exorcism, a tin of salt and a bottle of holy water, a silver knife and three containers of gasoline. The brass bowl stayed his eye - it was uncomfortably similar to the vessels used by demons in communication, and that was just a little too smart for a guy as green as Jerry. Sam had streamlined Jerry's ritual somewhat, both for time, and effectiveness. Both in rescuing Charlie, and in keeping the Hell tide back.

For a guy about to attempt a human rescue mission to Hell, all for the sake of two brothers who reminded him so much of he and Sam, Dean felt oddly empty. It never seemed to stop. He and Sam, Jerry and Charlie, who knew how many other times this story had played out? Gabriel's warning wouldn't leave him alone. _Nothing good comes out of it. Just blood, and pain. _Even the archangel had his chapter - murdered by his big brother. As if that wasn't enough, here he was again, letting Sam put himself on the line. The hellhounds had claimed Charles Brandt, as he'd already reasoned. There was still a chance it would come back for him. Still a chance to turn this around …

"Hey, you okay?"

Sam was suddenly at his side, his face softly illuminated by the moonlight. Damn for a giant moose he could move silently when he wanted to.

"What?" Dean feigned.

Sam was half-smiling, half frowning at him.

"You just looked a thousand miles away, is all."

Dean shook his head, hands deep in his pockets.

"I'm fine. Lets do this. Where's Jerry?"

Sam tipped his chin at the house.

"He's 'round the back, setting up. The house is the focus, our burr hole, so he's ringing everything else around it. Summoning Charlie on all sides. I think I got the trap and the vessel locked down pretty tight. If anything does slip out, it's going right back in."

Dean thought of Jerry's summoning, the part of the ritual focused on Charlie.

He had combined sigils for calling, summoning, reclaiming. Dean's heart involuntarily clenched when he noticed the late medieval European symbol for the bonds of family which Jerry had obviously added himself. The symbols were drawn on stones, reminding Dean of Sam. Jerry may not have known, but his own desperate energy spent hurling them into the fire of his brother's torment only added strength to his efforts. As for Hell, around the house was a ring of volatile powder Jerry had rigged himself. At thirteen points around the ring lay a candle and a sigil, ranging from opening doors, weakening bonds to thinning the veil and justice for the innocent. As each ignited, accompanied by the properties of Jerry's herb and salt mixture, each activated in succession. The powder circled inwards, to the house. The final frontier for their portal.

Sam slapped his shoulder.

"Come on, lets douse the place while he's busy."

They both took up a container of gasoline and headed inside, soaking everything within reach.

The house so liberally doused in gasoline that Dean could barely keep his eyes open for the fumes, he and Sam stumbled out to find Jerry standing where Dean had been, holding a candle. Coughing slightly from the gas, Dean nevertheless stopped on the sagging porch and stared at him. The light from the candle in his hands illuminated his face, and he was looking down at his brother's bones at his feet. That look … he looked like it was all finally catching up with him. Dean recognized Jerry's strategy the moment he'd understood about Charlie. The instinct that if he didn't think too hard, just kept going, kept pushing as hard as he could, one step and then the next, he could keep himself in one piece. If he stopped, even for a moment, and allowed reality to crash over him, he'd never get back up. And now here he stood, his brother's bones at his feet, and this was his reality. Now it would either work, and everything would be okay, or it wouldn't, and he looked as if he couldn't bear to think of what would happen next. Dean moved to curtail him before he sank too far.

"Okay, pawns in place," he said brightly when he reached Jerry. "Lets light this fire."


	6. Chapter 5 - Mangling the Pheasant

It began simply enough.

Two hunters and one desperate little brother stood in the dark before an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, the latter holding a book. The spell was fifteenth century, like the manuscript, and Sam had corrected Jerry's very few errors. His voice was strong and measured, which said a lot in Dean's book, considering what was going on. The meaning of the Latin words slipped past Dean, but the cadence of the language was familiar, having listened to Sam recite similar invocations countless times over the years, and Dad before him. Jerry completed the first rite, and flicked on his lighter. He glanced at Sam, then Dean, both of whom nodded. Jerry set down his candle before Charles Brandt's bones, swallowed, and moved to the first candle ringing the house. Dean saw him take a breath, kneel, and light it. The herb and salt mixture hissed, grey smoke filtering into the darkness. Jerry stood, watching. A moment later, like an acme cartoon, the line of the volatile powder mix caught, and began a swift, steady burn toward second base. Showtime. As needed, Jerry followed it at a run, keeping pace with the racing flame, reciting the chant he knew by heart. At the second candle, the mixture flashed brightly, coinciding with Jerry's chant. Third and fourth followed on schedule without a hitch, and by five, he was out of sight. Dean tried to mentally keep pace with him, but it was pure guesswork. All they could do was wait until he came out the other side.

Just when Dean was starting to worry, the form of Jerry Brandt sprinted around the corner of the house, his voice slightly breathless but strong, following in the chant, raising the power he needed - the spark before the blaze - as the circle ignited each point. Dean sucked in his breath as Jerry reached thirteen and dashed his handful of powder into the flame. There was a flash, and silence. Phase one complete. It took a moment for the inward spiral of powder to hit the house, but when it did, Dean silently congratulated he and Sam on their generosity with the gasoline. Within moments, the dry, ancient wood of the house started blazing, washing all three men in orange light.

Jerry moved back to the Winchesters, taking up the stolen manuscript. He recited the Latin without falter, following the old rite as before them, the fire gained strength as it sucked in oxygen and fuel, the heat pinching their faces.

Jerry ended the second invocation on a shout, and Dean absently wondered. He couldn't have known that energetically, that was the right way to go. He just seemed to know instinctively. Interesting.

Jerry took up the brass bowl and the blood - and it was the first time Dean saw him falter. Memories of the woman he had almost killed, Dean guessed. He had met her, spoken to her himself. A young, pretty brunette with rich brown eyes. Had she cried, pleaded, begged him? Jerry had done everything he could for her, to make sure she survived, but saving Charlie was his priority. He was all that mattered. His brother. For the first time since kick-off, he chanced a glance at Sam. _His _little brother was watching Jerry with a tempered version of the expression he'd worn listening to Jerry's story the first time. Pity, sympathy, understanding, regret. He had seen the flinch too, and felt for the guy. Dean smiled at him softly. What they had gone through for, and with, each other. Good and bad. God, if anything happened to Sam through these trials … Suddenly, he needed the Brandt brothers to come out on top, on a personal level.

He looked back at Jerry.

At the thirteenth candle, the youngest Brandt knelt to pour the heavy thickness of the woman's blood into the bowl, stood, and continued his recitation.

Before him, several of the remaining windows in the house shattered under the heat in a sharp trill of breaking glass, and Dean felt a sense of quickening, realizing the sweat gathering under his collar. He knew that feeling. _Here we go …_

Jerry turned and moved back to Sam and Dean, his nervousness almost palpable. Hostage exchange. The furthest he had ever got. He knelt, picking up the vessel containing Asrael carefully. He chanced the frightened, uncertain glance of a kid half his age at each of them. Wordlessly, Dean clapped his shoulder in encouragement, and Jerry cast him a tremulous smile before that weird, multiple personality steel Dean had noted before shunted into his expression, and when he turned back toward a ritually burning building creating a hole in Hell, carrying a demon, his expression was resolute. Asrael's fate was consummated in one word, one Dean actually recognized for some reason, as Jerry got as close to the building as he could with the heat, hefted the vessel over his shoulder, and flung in cleanly into the fire.

"Verto!" Jerry's voice yelled, his silhouette bracing hands on knees.

It fit. It translated, Dean knew, into "exchange." He supposed in many ways it was. The power of Asrael's soul for Charlie's. Demon for human. Good for evil, forward for backward, whatever way you wanted to look at it, symbolically it matched up.

It was then something started actually happening, in Dean's book. The circle of flame around the house suddenly flared, the candles he could see melted, and a noise like a jet engine suddenly seemed to suck inwards around the house, a pulse of power beating out against them. Jerry was not a man to be dissuaded.

Both Dean and Sam flinched, as Jerry worked his way back to them, gathering the crude, but effective, inscribed stones of his intent. It was horribly clear to Dean at that moment that Jerry was more than prepared for this. He hurled stone after stone, the symbols Dean had already interpreted, into the blaze. His scream of each Latin phrase painted thereon grew more desperately hoarse each swing. He flung the final stone, voice breaking, falling to his knees.

"Charlie!" He screamed at the steadily burning building before him. "Charlie!"

He drew a knife Dean didn't even know he carried, and on some mad impulse, sliced his palm open, flinging a handful of his own blood into the blaze.

Everything exploded, knocking both Winchesters off their feet.

A mushroom cloud of fire and darkness exploded from the house. Black demon-souls formed into faces with fathomless eyes and gaping mouths, writhing in the dimness. Hands with grasping fingers clawed at the outer reaches of Sam's binding spell.

Seeking escape from the frail human bonds.

Sam fumbled to his feet, making a desperate scrabble for the open exorcism.

Sam began the words of his worst case scenario, of denoms trying to break loose, the exorcism that woud force them back. But he was only one man…

Something ticked over in Dean's head, and he drew Ruby's knife on impulse. If this was going to happen, then they weren't getting Sam. He'd cover his brother until they sliced him to pieces.

Jerry Brandt was still on his knees before the blaze, screaming his brother's name barely audibly over the voice of the fire, the deeper scream of the contained demons.

"Jerry get back!" Dean yelled at him, the steady chatter of Sam's Latin exorcism continuing behind him. "Sammy read faster!"

Sam obliged as above and around the house, the twisting collums of demon souls pressed the boundaries of the binding, clearly unable to cross. So far. The sheer energy of it pressing against Dean's skin. Light flashed all around them.

Sam's exorcism suddenly ended, and for a moment there was complete silence.

Then with a howl that set his hair on end and made both Winchesters stumble a few steps forward, the dark substance of the demon souls seemed to be sucked back into the fire, figuratively and literally, on Earth in the form of the burning farmhouse, and back to Hell through the connection. Sam was one man closing a breach into Hell.

Jerry's powder circle suddenly fizzled out into darkness, the now entirely mundane fire of the farmhouse continuing to burn.

Dean skittered his eyes around them, around the house, down at Jerry. He flexed his fingers around Ruby's knife, cautiously approaching the youngest Brandt brother where he knelt before the blaze.

"Jerry? That you in there?"

"Charlie," Dean heard him whisper confusedly. "What about Charlie?"

He looked up at Dean, frowning. Before Dean could get a word out, the shocked yell of a new voice startled both Jerry and Dean, sending the former scrambling to his feet. Sam had startled right along with them, stumbling a few steps toward the fire and clutching the book.

Charles Brandt's bones were gone. Instead, there was what appeared to be one very surprised Charlie.

"Charlie," Jerry gasped at Dean's side, starting forward.

Dean caught him across the chest with one arm as Sam moved back toward them.

"Hold on, Jerry, we don't know what we've got yet."

"But you _said _-"

"We're just gonna be sure, okay. Come on."

Charlie Brandt was stumbling around in a pointless circle in the firelight, his mouth literally hangning open.

"Hey!" Dean caught his attention.

Charlie spun to face him, dark eyes to match Jerry's wide with shock and confusion.

"Wha - what -"

He stumbled a step toward them and stopped, caution overcoming shock.

Dean was still holding Jerry back, and could feel the pressure building up in the other man's body. He'd make a break for his brother any moment and if they had dragged out something wearing Charlie's face, Jerry was history.

"You Charles Mason Brandt?" Dean asked, tone hard.

He realized they were silhouetted against the fire, and thus difficult to make out, when Charlie raised a hand to shield his eyes.

"Who're you?" He demanded.

Dean edged closer, stil blocking Jerry, Sam mirroring him.

"Sammy," Dean tipped his brother.

"On it," Sam responded, edging around Charlie to get to the holy water.

Tipping it on Charlie had no effect except earning them a sharp "What the hell?"

Ironic choice of words for a man they'd just pulled out of it. Undaunted, Sam flung salt at him.

"Sam," Dean said, palming Ruby's knife from his belt and throwing it to his brother. "If he lights up he's history."

"We've just got to be sure you are who you say you are," Sam told Charlie, creeping closer carefully. Charlie understandably backed away from a big man coming toward him holding a knife.

"You were in Hell. We just have to make sure you're still … you. Here, look."

Sam shuffled back his sleeve and shallowly sliced his own arm.

"Your turn."

"You stay away from me," Charlie warned, holding out a hand against Sam.

"Charlie please!" Jerry's voice held every bit of pleading he had, and Dean cursed silently. He may have succeeded in holding Jerry back for the meantime - didn't mean he could shut him up. Charlie immediately froze, despite Sam's proximity. He'd know that voice anywhere and Dean knew it. Slowly, he raised his hand again to shield his eyes from the firelight and stare disbelievingly at Dean and Jerry.

"Jerry," he whispered.

Dean knew what came next, and cursed again for having thrown Sam the knife. He had his colt on him, but there wasn't much sense in shooting a guy they had just resurrected.

"Jerry! You done something to my brother?"

He moved toward Dean, and it wasn't the stunned stumble of a man thrown back hot into life. He could read Charlie like a book - he presumed his little brother was in danger, and would try tearing Dean apart to get to him.

"Sam, a litte help here," he said, pushing Jerry back.

Sam came from behind Charlie, using his distraction to grab one arm, drawing the blade across it.

"He's clean."

Charlie instinctively grabbed his arm and backed away from Sam, his head whipping from Jerry to Sam and back again. To break that ice, Dean finally released Jerry, who made a beeline for his brother. Charlie grabbed him and bodily shoved Jerry behind him, eyes on the Winchesters.

"What the hell is going on here? Who are you? What do you want with Jerry?"

"It's okay, Charlie, they're friends," Jerry tried consoling him as he tried to muscle his way out from behind. But Charlie was shocked and confused and probably scared out of his mind, not to mention bigger that Jerry, and he wasn't rolling over that easy.

"Answer me," he demanded, ignoring Jerry.

"It's okay," Sam replied, holding out his hands. "I'm Sam Winchester, that's my brother Dean. We're here to help."

"It's true, they helped me get you back!" Jerry pleaded, voice breaking.

"Back," Charlie whispered, dropping his eyes from the Winchesters to frown in confusion, his face washed in the firelight.

"_You died on me!" _Jerry finally lost his last nerve and yelled, punching Charlie hard in one shoulder. That spun his brother, as Jerry wound up for another swing. "You died!"

"Stop, Jerry stop it," Charlie said, his attention now on calming Jerry down.

When he couldn't catch both Jerry's fists at once, he made good use of his size advantage and bear-hugged his brother, effectively trapping Jerry's hands between them.

"Stop. Calm down," he said, over Jerry's repeated lament of _you died._

"What is going on?" He asked, eyes on Sam and Dean.

"It's uh - it's a really long story," Sam said, his eyes skittering back to the road.

Dean followed both his eyeline and his train of thought.

"Yeah one we don't want to be telling to the law. Lets amscrade."


	7. Chapter 6 - Returning Home

Charlie Brandt sat on the bed of another no-tell-motel, elbows propped on his knees, shaking his head. Dean could see the resemblance now there was enough light to mark it. Charlie was bigger in body type than Jerry, his face strong where Jerry's was narrow, but they both shared the same eyes.

"I can't believe it. I was there and I can't believe it."

"I hear that," Dean agreed, standing up for more coffee.

Jerry sat opposite him, staring. He could hardly keep his eyes off his brother for more than a second. Sam sat in the chair by the table.

"So this deal," he asked of Sam. "Even though you got me back, that doesn't affect why I made it in the first place."

Dean leaned against the kitchenette and watched cautiously.

A soft smile touched Sam's face, and Dean squirmed, knowing Sam was thinking of him, of the ridiculous correlations this job had with them. The guy had just been ripped out of a four month tour in Hell and all he was interested in was making sure busting out and being alive didn't mean Jerry getting sick again.

"No," Sam finally answered gently. "No it doesn't work like that."

Charlie nodded. "So … so what now?"

"Now you get on with your life," Sam said, nodding at Jerry. "With your brother."

Charlie looked at Jerry and smiled, his brother returning it.

"You guys - you helped us, and you didn't have to. Thankyou. And if a couple of regular guys can ever do anything to repay the favour, just ask."

Sam nodded. "You're welcome."

Sam and Dean dropped the Brandt brothers off at the bus station the next day.

"They're gonna be okay," Dean said, leaning against the impala and raising a hand in farewell as the bus peeled out onto the road.

"Yeah, Jerry got his brother back," Sam agreed, smiling in a way that made Dean squirm.

"And you're sure it worked, everything was contained."

"We'd have known about it if it wasn't."

Dean nodded, moving toward the door, Sam mirroring him on the other side. Dean slowed, keys in hand, and looked at Sam over the roof of the impala.

"Sam … are _you _okay? Really?"

Sam shrugged lightly, lacing his hands on the roof of the car.

"Yeah I mean, sure there's gonna be crap ahead, and I don't know if I can pull this off, but … cases like this just make you grateful for what you got, y'know?"

_Grateful to have your brother safe. Yeah, sure, _Dean thought sadly, looking down at the keys in his hand. There had been no hellhound on Charlie's tail, and Sam was still taking the fall for him. Again, he thought of finding a deal with a due date and waiting out the hellhound, but he wasn't even certain it would work for him anymore. He couldn't see any way to _fix _this.

"Dean," Sam's voice drew him, and he looked up to find his brother dipping to catch his eyes.

"It's gonna be fine, okay. Lets just get back on the road."

He swung into the impala. Dean took a moment, drew a breath, and joined him.


End file.
